The practice of a flowstate can be the first great hurdle in a writer’s journey.
So it is no wonder that for many people, increasing their word count becomes the first big step into improving one’s skills. It is the obvious metric to measure progress, an objective measure of productivity.
Many other writers also see it this way. From my quick google search, there are many articles and online threads that discuss the habits of professional writers, especially word count. Most seem to get around 1000-2000 words a day.
Famously, Stephen King writes roughly 5000 words a day no matter what, willing to use everything or nothing from a whole day’s work. In contrast, Ernest Heminway would get up at the crack of dawn and write about 500 words(remember that they only had typewriters in those days, much slower than a modern keyboard). Then, he would spend the rest of his day hunting, fishing, drinking, and being sad.
However, the flow state isn’t the same for everyone. To some people, writing is a form of meditation, a trance in which the words just fall out like a spiritual experience that can be examined and reflected upon.
To others, writing is more crafting. In a sense, they are building their own puzzle, building each piece of the jigsaw as they go, carefully and methodically. To these writers, word count can be a terrible metric because despite the time they put into the effort, the physical fruits of their labor can seem miniscule when comparing themselves to others. To these young writers still building confidence in their style, word count can be a metric that only makes them frustrated.
The solution that I have found for these people is to count their progress not in words but in time.
I watched a video this year regarding the “Stopwatch Method”. In it, the subject, Dr. Ken Atchity, discusses how time is a finite resource and our understanding of it can greatly benefit productivity. As a university professor, he mentioned that many of his struggling students would complain they would struggle with the material even after 10 hours of studying.
He would rectify the situation by asking them a question:
“What exactly are you doing with that time?”
It’s a good question. If I look back on my own undergrad years, my time writing papers, researching, or studying would lead to long marathons in the library. Admittedly, most of that time was spent on the internet doing anything but my work. It seems like his students had the same problem
Here, Dr. Atchity provides a solution to this by recommending the use of a timer. As a professor and screenwriter, he would start the clock and do his work, then stop it when he needed a break or to attend to another matter. The point he makes is that two hours of complete focus is more productive than ten hours’ worth of sporadic attention.
The key is to keep the clock going as long as you are working. It doesn’t have to be strictly writing. It can be reading over your work, doing some content or technical edits, or even just planning. The moment that you are not in a state of productivity, turn off the timer.
This can be great for those who tend to have a wandering mind. I have a stopwatch on my phone and when it is going, I tend to keep the screen on. Being able to see that timer is a reminder of my current goals, anchoring me to the task when my brain catches the thought of going to another youtube video. The desire to hit that “GO” button is a surprisingly good motivator to get back to the task at hand.
It can also be great for those who have limited time in their day. If you only have an hour during lunch to write in your daily routine, make a goal for 30 minutes of unmitigated writing. You would be surprised how much that aggregates into a larger body of work over a period of time. I believe Terry Pratchett spent much of his early years only able to write 500 words a day due to his day job and his bibliography is now enormous.
Branden Sanderson famously chooses to work in time, writing in two segments a day, roughly three hours each. He says that through this, he gets roughly 2000 words a day. Sanderson’s work in fantasy fiction definitely compliments this style of writing. I can’t imagine all of the documents dedicated just for outlining and worldbuilding. For him, a good day’s work is not just pure word count but all of the method that goes into crafting his stories.
However you choose to measure your progress, I think the point here is not so much that one metric is better than the other. Like any other artistic craft, everyone has their own method and rituals. It is about finding the best tools, mental or physical, that work for your lifestyle and psychological profile.
Maybe you will use one or the other. I have come to a point where I use a combination of the two. I imagine that some people like Charles Bukowski would say “fuck it” to both metrics, someone who believes you should write when you damn please. Whatever you decide, make sure your metric is based on your own ideas of growth and accomplishments.
Danger Wonka 